Shakespeare's Rebel (26 page)

E and E were entwined, the first E’s lowest bar forming the second’s middle.

He looked at each one in turn; and though he knew it was not there, yet he thought he could see another letter. An L. L for Lawley. Caught, like him, between the two of them.

Between Elizabeth and Essex.

ACT THREE

The Trouble with Ireland

They have produced no other effect there than a ship doth in a wide sea, who leaves no longer print or impression in the water than for the very instant, the waves immediately filling the way she makes, so as the same cannot be found . . . It is strange that Deputies are not restrained from running still this wild goose chase.

Anonymous minute writer to the Privy Council, on Ireland, 1599

XIX

What Country, Friend, Is This?

‘Put about! I am the Queen’s messenger and I command it. Put about, damn ye!’

He screamed to be heard above the storm. He would not have been able to understand the reply, for the master of the sloop spoke little English, and Welsh was not one of the languages John had. The mutter and accompanying shrug were easy to translate though: a turd for the Queen and another for her messenger!

The man bellowed at his three sailors. John doubted that any of the words were to turn the vessel back to Dublin, whose wharves they’d glimpsed just before the surprise storm drove them past its port. Chewing his lips, he squinted into the rain. The shore could still be glimpsed despite the deluge. Yet John was sailor enough, after his time with Drake, to acknowledge that to try and turn about was a risk only a desperate man would take. He was that man. The master, for obvious reasons, was not.

Pox on him! John thought, his shoulders slumping. To be held up here, at the last, an arrow’s shot from his goal, when the whole journey had hitherto been so easy. The best horses from every stable led out on production of the Queen’s warrant, a hot late summer keeping the roads dry. He’d slept little, and made Bangor in five days, the warrant and a dose of silver securing passage on a fishing boat just about to set out. The sea was calm, the wind set fair, and Dublin in sight within hours. And then this storm from nowhere, and driven before the wind, which could blow him anywhere. What then of his hopes? All of them were centred on reaching the earl, executing his office and returning with as much dispatch as he had come, to Southwark.

He raised his head into the rain, sniffed. Was there a lessening? A little light in the grey? He strode after the captain, took him by the shoulder, turned him. The Welshman shrugged his hand off, and growled like a dog. ‘Hear me,’ John said, and it seemed to him he could shout a little less, ‘the wind slackens. Put about for Dublin.’

The master shook his head. ‘Wind bad. Sea bad. Wait.’

He turned away. John seized his sodden jerkin at the shoulder with a grip that could not be shrugged off, turned him with one hand, drawing his dagger with the other. This he raised into the other man’s sight. It was a language all understood. ‘I can’t wait, you sheep-puddler,’ he said, his face thrust close to the other’s. ‘Now put about or—’ He glanced to larboard. The land was closer again. It was not a long walk to Dublin, surely. ‘Or put me ashore here. Here!’

The man dragged his gaze from the dagger to look. ‘Here? No port.’

‘Then . . .’ John looked around. Lashed to the aft deck was a small skiff. ‘Get me close. I’ll take that.’

‘Boat?’ The man’s face eased slightly, and John was close enough to see the thoughts in his eyes. These narrowed. ‘Boat. Money. No get back.’

John nodded. He didn’t care. He had spent almost nothing on his ride, sleeping in stables, snatched meals in taverns. The Queen’s coin could be used for her service and his own. ‘Money,’ he agreed, sheathing his dagger.

It did not take long. A foresheet raised and two men leaning on the tiller pushed them shorewards. The skiff was unlashed, oars put in it. It was lowered, tethered to the side in the bucking sea. His purse lighter for the loss of too much silver, his satchel of letters strapped firmly across his chest, John was handed over the side. He nearly lost his balance, for the skiff lurched with waves that were much taller closer to. He sat heavily, suddenly reconsidered, looked up . . . to be slapped in the face with the flung tethers. The two vessels swiftly parted, the last sound John heard, before the wind took all, some raucous Welsh laughter.

The rain and wind
were
slackening a little perhaps, but they still drenched and buffeted. The heron’s feather in his cap drooped soaked before his eyes and he plucked it, chucked it, peered. The wind was onshore and the waves were pushing him thither, but along it too. He lifted the oars, wishing he had a paddle and was in something called a canoe, which he’d used with Drake on the western coast of America. The natives there had been skilled in their use and had passed on some of their knowledge – such knowledge useless in this vessel, a swimming cow to the other’s otter. He dipped the oars, lost them from the rowlocks, strove again. He was not making much headway, and that as much sideways as forward – until he suddenly was, for the waves picked up closer in. One large one caught him, moving him fast towards the shore.

Too fast! He leaned on one oar, put weight behind it . . . it was snatched away, its twin emulating it next moment, gone. Now he had nothing to stop or even slow the boat’s sudden forward speed, could only scrunch down and stare in horror at the fast-approaching land as one wave took the skiff, shoved it, dropped it, another picked it up, bigger, much bigger. Somehow it kept straight, did not go side on and flip. He glimpsed a break in the rock face ahead, some lighter colour. Sand, he thought, he prayed, he willed. It was the only control he had.

‘Oh. Oh-oh-oh-oh-OH!’

The boat rode the wave easily. Not so the land, which it struck prow first, and stuck. He was at the back of the boat, which shot up, hurtling him forward.

He was flying, and he knew he was no bird. But within his body, some tumbler’s instinct – from his early days as a wandering player, when he’d flipped and vaulted to draw a crowd – made him curl. He hit the ground hard but took some of the impact in a roll, which continued through three more before he smacked down, face planted into coarse sand.

He lay there for a while, only turning his head to spit out beach and take in air. As if it was done with him, the storm slackened, rain diminishing then halting altogether. The sand yellowed with sunlight. He heard seagulls.

And a voice. Human, though it shouted something incomprehensible, yet akin to the Welsh he’d lately not understood. The words were followed by a sharp jab in his back. He flipped over. Standing above him was a scraggle-bearded man in a plaid cloak. He hefted a pike and he was bringing it hard down again.

John did not think, just moved; rolled aside, let the pike’s butt drive into the sand, gathered his legs and swung them hard into the man’s, who was not braced and went over fast. In a moment, John was atop him, dagger drawn, point placed close to the man’s eyes. ‘Easy, lad. Do not move.’

He didn’t know if he was understood, but steel conveyed what words might not. The man froze, his terror clear. John stared at him, considering his own ignorance. Why had he not listened more closely to tales of the Irish wars? How much land did the English hold? Was he in enemy territory, paper truce or not? And just how far was Dublin?

Yet before he could find ways of asking this of a man who probably would not understand it, another voice came, this time in a tongue he knew. He even knew the accent, which, if it was not from Southwark, was within a Roman mile of it.

‘Oy! Let go of ’im, you spyin’ bastard.’

John did not let go, nor lower his knife, but he did look up. Standing a dozen paces away was a soldier, in breastplate and helm, with a musket in his hands. Pointed at John. He nodded at it. ‘Powder’s probably wet. You might misfire.’

‘I might,’ the soldier replied, ‘but we all won’t.’ As he spoke, another six men came from the rock face, some dressed as John’s captive, some as soldiers. They all had muskets levelled.

‘Ah.’ John shifted slightly. ‘Yet just before I do, Corporal, let me say this. I am not a spy, I am the Queen’s messenger. And I come on urgent business from her majesty.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ the soldier replied, then jerked his gun. ‘Now, let ’im go.’

John did so immediately, standing up and sheathing his dagger, stepping back with arms raised. The prone man rose and joined his companions. The Englishman took a pace forward, musket still pointed. ‘You ’ave some way of provin’ what you say?’

‘I do, if you’ll allow me.’ John reached under his cloak to his satchel, opened its clasp, extracted the Queen’s warrant. His recent captive came and snatched it. Took it back to the corporal, who studied it while the others crowded around. So intent was their scrutiny that John could have walked silently away, but didn’t.

‘Well, that looks real enough,’ the soldier said with the confident air of a man who obviously could not read, ‘but I’ll ’ave to show it to me officer. Could be a fake. You could still be a whoreson spy. You look like a bloody Spaniard.’

‘Then will you take me to him straightway?’ John replied. ‘For as I said, my business is most urgent.’

The man chuckled. ‘Is that why you arrived with such speed? I’ve never seen the like. When you flew from that boat and tumbled! My poor sides!’ Chuckle had become guffaw. ‘And unless you aimed for it, you was lucky, for this is the only strand in three miles, rest is rock. ’Swy we’re ’ere, keepin’ watch for smugglers . . . and spies.’ On the word, he turned to the others. ‘Both sides of ’im. Leave him his weapons for now, but watch close. And I’ll keep this.’ He waved the warrant.

He was obeyed; the guard formed up around John. The corporal placed himself at the head of them, and they set off along the beach, veering soon towards a cleft on the rock face.

‘What is your name, Corporal?’

‘Russell. Sebastian Russell.’

‘Of Southwark?’

‘Near enough. I was raised in East Cheap. But me pa’s a higgler on Bankside. Sells puddin’s.’

‘I may have eaten some of his wares not five days since.’

‘Woz you there?’ The soldier’s eyes shone. ‘Place still the same?’

John had been a soldier. ‘As full of sin as any man could wish.’

‘Wunnerful. And I will take my fill of it, soon as I am shot of this God-cursed ’ole.’ He turned, spat into the wall of the rocky defile that led away from the beach.

It was never too soon to glean information. ‘Perhaps you will get that chance soon, man. With this truce . . .’

The soldier assembled another impressive amount of phlegm, expelled it. ‘Truce? ’Ow long will that last? This war’s only over when we’ve starved or thrashed these bloody peasants into submission.’ He’d looked at the Irishmen as he spoke.

‘Our allies?’

‘Allies? They’d sell their mother for a pot of ale – once they’d swived ’er enough.’ He looked to spit again, then swallowed it down. ‘These take our coin for now. Tomorrow it will be their own chieftains’ again.’

They’d climbed to a clifftop. Ahead, John saw a small white-walled house, a barn beside it. Both had turf roofs and rough musket holes knocked in their walls. Stunted trees bent to the wind beside them. ‘This close to Dublin, though, surely they are loyal?’

‘Dublin’s six mile off, sir,’ came the reply. ‘And every one of them miles filled with these bog-trotters, all aquiver for loot. When we travel, we travel in armed bands. They are cowardly shitters, the lot of ’em. Won’t fight us proper, no matter how the earl tries to provoke ’em.’ He laughed. ‘’E even challenged Tyrone to single combat. Not a chance.’

They approached the house. Last opportunity for a little forewarning. ‘How is the earl, have you heard?’

A shadow came into the soldier’s eyes. ‘Not well, sir, so it’s said. Not well.’ He looked up, the shadow left and he grinned. ‘But you may discover that soon enough for yourself. He likes to examine spies personal, so it is said. In the dungeons of Dublin Castle. You can ’ear the screams all the way to the docks.’

This was new. Essex had ordered some examinations and executions in their times together, as any general must. John had not noticed him revelling in them.

They’d arrived before the hut. The corporal halted his party with a raised hand. ‘My captain’s within. He’ll consider your papers, decide if you’re bound for Dublin’s dungeons or not. If he’s awake this close to noon, which is unlikely,’ he said, stepping to the door, adding in a mutter, ‘and if he’s sober, which is less likely still.’

He knocked, hard. There was silence for a few moments, then a garbled shout. John didn’t understand it but the corporal did. ‘Yes, Captain. Quite right. But I ’ave a prisoner ’ere. Might be a spy. Though ’e ’as papers.’

Silence again, even longer, then a loud sigh, finally a slurred voice. ‘Come then, damn ye.’

The corporal raised his eyebrows at John, pushed the door open, went in. More muttering came from within, querulous, unintelligible . . . then one loud cry. There followed the sound of staggering, and the door was flung wide.

‘Well, well, John Lawley,’ came an instantly familiar high-pitched voice. ‘Can you give me one good reason why I do not hang you as a spy?’

Looking up, John gazed for one long moment into the bloodshot eyes of Despair. Then he closed his own.

XX

Ambuscado

It was a shock. And yet a part of him immediately acknowledged a kind of inevitability. It was simply the way his fortune had been going lately.

‘Samuel,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘
Sir
Samuel, insolent dog. I am a knight of the realm and a captain of my lord of Essex’s army. What are you?’

John was about to respond in similar vein. Yet he held himself back. He could see it in the man’s fat face, hear it in that strange piping voice – D’Esparr was both suffering from the debauchery of the night before and a little ways into remedying it with its repetition. What purpose would be served by provoking him? The man could at the least order him beaten before he truly studied the warrant clutched in his hand. ‘I am the Queen’s messenger, Sir Samuel,’ he replied. ‘If you would take the time to study the commission . . .’